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Top 5 Fast Modern Muscle Cars

Muscle cars have been the favorite american fast cars for a while now. Huge rumbling engines that you can hear from miles away, demanding respect everywhere they turned up and burning rubber wherever possible. This is what muscle cars are all about. Because of their huge displacement engines, their straight line performance is out off this world. They create so much torque they an practically pull up to a traffic jam, say HELL NO and just push the cars out off their way and continue their journey. Ultimately you can discribe ‘m with just 3 words: BIG, LOUD and MEAN

We all know the classic muscle cars from the 60′s like the Plymouth Hemi-Cuda,Dodge Charger(dukes of hazard), Ford mustang and the Chevrolet Camaro. The 60′s were the golden years for these fast cars. In america they were immensly popular and offered enormous amounts of horsepower per dollar paid. The youth loved ‘em, the elder, not so much. Lots of people thought it was irresponsible to sell these machines with more than 400hp to the young crowd they were targeted for. The poor handling and bad to average brakes didn’t help either. After a while unsurance companies started upping there rates and because of that they slowly started to become too expensive for young people to own. Also the fuel crisis and the clean air act came to stand in the way of these gas guzzlers. This ended the muscle car’s golden era and they slowly started to disappear from the street view, but not for long.In the late 80′s and 90′s the manufacturers slowly started to reintroduce this concept with the impala SS and the Camaro z28. They started to use overdrive systems and electronic fuel injection to lower the fuel consumption and as a result reduce the amount of toxic gasses emitted. This counteracted the traditional concept of low cost, big engined cars.

Today’s muscle cars are a bit more safer, a bit more luxurious and friendlier to the owner. Don’t be fooled though, they aren’t equipped with 2L eco engines either. Modern muscle cars still have the rumbling V8 engines from the days, normally aspirated or even supercharged. Several of them even cross the 500hp mark. So without further ado, here is our list of our favorite modern muscle cars, enjoy!

1) Cadillac CTS-V coupe

The CTS-V is the most powerful version of the CTS series and comes with a 6.2L v8 block that’s been topped off with a supercharger that blows the horsepower and torque figures to 550 hp and 747 Nm (551 ft lbs) respectively. It does the 0 to 60 mph sprint in just under 4 seconds! That’s serious supercar territory.
Complimenting this powerhouse is a high performance chassis fitted with the ‘Magnetic Ride Control’ suspension featuring two modes, one for touring and one for track driving.

The suspension is developed and tuned on Germany’s notorious racetrack, the Nürburgring. Not really a common proces for the development of an american muscle car. With this in mind and the fact that the car weights close to the 4000 lbs. mark (3850 lb (1750 kg)) cadillac had to go for the best of the best when it comes to stopping power. They opted for huge brembo calipers clamping on to monstrous 380mm(14.96 in) discs in the front and almost identical sized ventilated discs in the back.
This true performance recipe doesn’t stop here, the inside has been dealt with as well. The interior is equipped with RECARO® performance seats which provide firm support during high speed maneuvers. The big centrally placed tacho is equipped with Red LED tracers that flash when you are about to approach the redline, while a g-meter tells you how much lateral force you are generating in the bends.

2) Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

Also blasted around and tested on the Nürburgring, chevrolet comes with it’s top of the line model, most certainly the fastest Camaro ever made, the ZL-one. Chevrolet calls it “barely street legal” and surely it looks like it doesn’t belong on the roads everyday commuters use to get to work and to pick up groceries. It’s still capable of doing these everyday chores but it manages to lap ‘the ring’ (according to Chevrolet) in 7 minutes and 41 seconds, that’s faster than a 911 gt3! This american trackday car also features a big 6.2L Eaton supercharged engine that puts out a staggering 580 hp and 754 Nm (556 lb.-ft.) of torque transmitted to the rear wheels through a more conventional six speed manual transmission or an optional six speed auto gearbox that requires paddle shifters to be triggered when a gear change is needed.

The engineers at Chevrolet made sure that every horsepower generated by the aluminium small block can be used properly and so they managed to get the weight distribution to a ratio of 52% to 48% front-to-back. 370mm (14.6″)Brembo® brakes come as standard and 20″ wheels are needed to house the discs. They also fitted the fast car with ‘Performance Traction Management’, a system that let’s the driver choose between five performance settings optimized for ambient and track conditions, driver experience and vehicle familiarity. Chevrolets ‘Magnetic Ride technology’ makes setting the suspension to your desires easy with just 3 choices; Tour, Sport and Track. The interior looks like it’s made to perform with suede all over the place and a small flat bottom steering wheel for increased leg room making ‘heel/toe shifting’ a breeze. The brutal looks and serious spec list makes this the F.C.S. favorite modern muscle car, a seriously fast car.

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3) 2010 Dodge Challenger SRT8 392

This modern age Challenger features a well known 6.4-liter HEMI V-8 engine that produces 470 hp and 637 Nm(470 ft lbs) of torque. This version gets more electronics than the previous challenger models and the chassis gets an updated suspension system. Thanks to this new systm you can now with the push of a button, switch between a ‘normal’ setup for everyday driving and cruising, and a ‘sports’ setup for spirited and track driving. The steering wheel is fitted with paddle shifters for easy and fast gear selecting. They also tried to get a more reasoneable mileage, which is isn’t an easy task with a huge 6.4 L block up front, but they managed to get it up to a to a pretty decent 23 mpg. Not bad considering the weight of the car and the size of the engine. Oh and it just looks badass.

4) 2010 Chrysler 300C SRT8

You might be wondering what this luxury sedan is doing in our fast muscle car list. Yes it’s a bit different from the other cars in this article and at first glance you might not think it belongs in here but there is a reason why we put it in here. It’s the engine, it’s big, actually it’s one of the biggest. How does 6.4 liters of HEMI displacement sound to you? While other car manufacturers try to downsize as much as possible, chrysler cranks up the volume with this one. While the previous srt-8 model had to do with only 425 hp, the new version gets a boost up to 465 hp and 637 Nm of torque.

Under the hood you can find the same engine block found in the Challenger muscle car and yes, it’s a good one. It propels this not so small cruiser from 0 to 100 km/h (60mph) in under 5 seconds and keeps going until it reaches the 280 km/h (175 mph) mark. Just like in the challenger you get a 5 speed automatic gearbox wich can operate on its own or by the click of a paddle on the steering wheel. To complete the muscular package this car features adaptive suspension with sport settings, serious sized brembo disk brakes and big fat 20″ shoes. The interior is dressed with leather and carbon accents and the occupants are seated in special srt design sport seats. The centre console is equipped with a 8.4″ lcd screen with a very interesting extra feature which is called the ‘performance pages’. In this tab you can find some racing car insprired functions including a g-meter,horsepower and torque meters and an acceleration- and quarter mile timer to be able to accurately brag about your muscle car at your local bar. In my opinion the designers should have given it a bit more aggressive styling but that would really limit the audience willing to own this car and it would probably not make it possible for it to exist.

5) 2011 Ford Mustang Shelby gt500

Propably the best known muscle car on the earth today, the one and only Ford Mustang. While one can opt for a new 3.7 L (227 cu. in.) aluminum V6 engine putting out a respectable 305 hp to save some dollars, we advise you to spend some more and go all out on a Shelby gt500. This model houses a 5.8L supercharged V8 producing nothing less than mind blowing figures, 662 hp and 856 Nm(631 lb. ft.) of torque, now that’s what I call a muscle car!
Ford claims it is the most powerful production V8 in the world at this time (2012). This makes it possible to reach speeds over the 320km/h (200 mph) mark. How’s that for a fast car? This mustang reaches a speed of 100 km/h (62 mph) in just 3.5 seconds, this means it’s a match for a Ferrari 458 Italia which does it in 3.4 seconds. Because of the tall gearing you can reach 225 km/h (140 mph) in 3rd gear! All this power and torque certainly pushes you back in your seat. People claim they have seen 1.0G appear on their equipment while accelerating. Again you can find huge brembos inside the wheels for stopping this mad, mad car. If you choose for the optional Performance package you get adjustable dampers and a limited-slip differential. Ordering the Performance package allows you to add the Track package, which brings a transmission cooler, a nose-mounted differential cooler for the limited-slip diff., and an air-to-oil engine-oil cooler for some serious track use.

I must say that we at fastcarspot really are impressed with the styling of these fast cars and the numbers they put down. Sub 5 second 0-60 times and 12 to 13 second quarter mile times are not something to take lightly. These cars can take on supercars that can cost up to 3 times as much. Altough most of the traditional muscle is extinct, these 5 examples show that there’s still some muscle left in the current automotive industry.

These cars still have the original aggressive styling, demanding respect everywhere they go and they still leave a exhaust note that sends shivers down your spine everytime they touch the accelerator.
They truly are BIG, LOUD and MEAN.

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